Retailer 78s sleeves

[Martin Bush]

Hi all

As you will see from another thread, I am a keen collector of 78s. I am selective as I have neither the space nor cash to spare to own hundreds, but I am building a nice little collection of songs and artists I like.

I am at my happiest when the right disc comes with the right company sleeve. But I notice that quite a few come with sleeves from retailers with their name, address etc on.

Why is this?

We are all familiar with shops having branded bags, but producing your own sleeves (many are good quality) and changing them for whatever a disc came in originally seems an extra expense and hassle.

Does anyone know why shops did this? Might they have been second hand discs with tatty sleeves perhaps?

As it happens, I recently picked up a Lonnie Donegan 7" that came in a sleeve from a retailer in Oxford, so it's not just 78s.

Martin

[Paul_RK]

I've always thought of shop-branded sleeves as probably a very worthwhile advertising medium, putting the name of the shop and often some details of its other lines in front of the customer for years if not decades. A high proportion of the sleeves around here were/are from Willmott's of Norwich, using thick card and sewn: I'd imagine many customers will have welcomed their durability, and some their comparative plainness too, over the usually frail and sometimes gaudy record company sleeves.

Paul

[ben]

I think it was largely for advertising purposes, but anyone with any experience of 78s will know that the paper sleeves they came in just were not up to the job of holding, let alone protecting, a brittle heavy 78 shellac disc.

The stiff card sewn ones were excellent in comparison. I imagine too that they could be put in racks and looked through so much more easily in such sleeves, paper ones would not last a day of people thumbing them.

The 1940s-early 50s grey/black Decca have to be the worst, they were so thin!

The retailer ones have a quaint charm, some of the claims seem quite amusing to read now.

[Martin Bush]

I agree with you both, but I also still think it would have been a fair expense. But maybe I am looking at it with today's eyes rather than how retailers would have looked at things back then.

I am learning a bit about sleeves and what design record companies used and when. Oddly, the Coral discs I have are all in dull and horrid thin brown paper types. I believe these to be original and you would have thought prime candidates for replacement.

Somehow they escaped being swapped and also survived the ravages of time. Thankfully I found that they may well be original before I binned them